Join REED Wimbledon in supporting Jigsaw4u’s Christmas Voucher Campaign

If you are a local business, school or individual who wants to give locally this Christmas, join REED Wimbledon and support our children, young people and families.

This Christmas Jigsaw4u are asking local businesses, schools or individuals looking to support a local charity to donate vouchers for our children and young people in need. Every year we have many families that won’t have very much to celebrate at Christmas. This could be due to a parent having a terminal illness, parents not having any money to pay for presents or Christmas dinner, or a family experiencing domestic abuse which we know is often worse at this time of year.

Last year, we wanted to make Christmas that little bit more joyful for the children we work with by taking them to pantomime at The New Wimbledon Theatre. We set up our first ever crowd funder and raised £1800 to take children and young people to see Peter Pan. The children loved it, one child said, “I’ve never been to the theatre before, I’d only ever seen it on the TV. Thank you for choosing me!” We knew most of the children had never been to the theatre, but we found that some had never even been to Wimbledon before!

Thanks to a generous group of fundraisers who raised money for our annual seaside trip we already have enough left over from their amazing feat to take another group of children to the pantomime this year. So we wanted to think about all of the children, young people and families we support that won’t make it to the pantomime; how could we make their Christmas something to celebrate?

We are lucky to have very generous present donations at Christmas; for the last few years BHP Billiton has run a Giving Tree campaign. These presents mean a huge amount to the children who receive them, and we pick the children that we think are most need. However, Jigsaw4u saw 3,900 individuals last year. Even if someone was generous enough to donate nearly 4000 Christmas presents, we wouldn’t have anywhere to store them!!

Thankfully, REED Wimbledon have the answer. This Christmas REED Wimbledon have asked their clients if they would donate a voucher for a child or young person we work with. They are out talking to all of their clients to encourage them to be as generous as they were with their Easter Egg campaign that saw over 500 Easter eggs delivered to our office!

We are asking other people who would like to give something back this Christmas to join REED Wimbledon in their Christmas Voucher Campaign. Vouchers for ASDA, Argos or Boots could help a family to buy their Christmas dinner, dressing gowns for the children or toiletries for those teenagers that might not have these basics, let alone luxury Christmas presents. Any value voucher would make life that little bit easier and more joyful for any of our families this Christmas.

 

If you would like to get involved in the Christmas Voucher Campaign, please get in touch. Or feel free to just send them over! Any supermarket voucher would be really useful to our families, as well as vouchers for toy shops, arts and crafts, stationery and toiletries- these are basics that many of our children won’t have this Christmas.

 

 

For more information contact Michelle Mullarkey

michellemullarkey@jigsaw4u.org.uk 020 8687 1384